Los Angeles Times on Thursday commented on Darfur. Excerpts:
The tragedy in Darfur tends to fade in and out of the world’s consciousness, mostly forgotten until some new outrage reminds us that millions of people there are still displaced and slowly starving in refugee camps as heavily armed rebels, militiamen, government soldiers and assorted bandits plunder the countryside. Comes now another outrage.
On Tuesday, about 200 bandits on horseback and in SUVs mounted with anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons opened fire on a UN peacekeeping force that had been investigating the killing of civilians in north Darfur. At least seven peacekeepers were killed and 22 wounded in a two-hour gunbattle.
The brazen assault was horrifying but hardly surprising, given that the peacekeepers are a grossly undermanned and underequipped contingent of sitting ducks. Astonishingly, it has been almost a year since the United Nations approved a strong force of 26,000 police and soldiers for Darfur, the largest peacekeeping force in the world — or it would have been if it had ever been deployed. The 9,000 or so peacekeepers in the country consist almost entirely of the old, discredited African Union force that should have been replaced by now; the AU troops simply painted their green helmets blue and switched to a new command structure.
The peacekeepers lack trucks, armored personnel carriers and, most critically, helicopters, which are needed to effectively patrol the Darfur region, an area of Sudan the size of France. Some of the equipment is being held in port by the Sudanese government, which has also blocked the deployment of non-African troops.
